Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1887-06-02
THE CREED OF cIEANL1Nrss.

The San Francisco Alta appeared yester-
day in new dress, and taking the occa-
sion as opportune to say something of it
sell, our contemporary proceeds to assert
its intention to adhere to its past course of
cleanliness, and it adds: "Vice and crime
will necessarily be found in every large
city, and the record of criminal acts must,
unfortunately, form some part of the daily
news, which every metropolitan journal is
called upon to publish. But stories of
crime can be told, and will be told by the
Alta, when called upon to recount them,
without dressing them in gaudy hues, care
fully devised to tickle and please the base
imaginings of the lewd and lascivious
Dirt and scandal may find their place in
the columns of those papers that choose to
pay their readers the doubtful compliment
of offering them that kind of mental pab-
ulum to feed upon. We believe that our
readers neither ask for it nor want it. We
look for our circulation where it always
has been-amengst those who are mentally
and morally the best people in the commu-
nifty"
In thus declaring its articles of journal
istic faith, the Alta must be well aware
that it incurs the ridicule of less conscien-
tious journals, which will proceed to dub
it old fogyish, prudish and altogether too
nice for this world
But if the Alta means what it says, its
managers propose to be at peace with
themselves, regardless of the sneers and
shafts of the bawdy press When it says
it will not dress stories of vice and crime
IN gaudy hues to tickle and please the base
imaginings of the iewd and lasciyious it
means to imply that there are those among
its contemporaries who revel in filth for
the gam they may make out of the patron
age of the vulgar-minded and the vicious
and the suggestion is justified.
Unless civilization is sham. domes-
ITCHY worthy of contempt, modesty and
innocence deceits, good manners undesir-
BILE, the saeredness of the family circle
cheat, and lewd desires and lasciyious
tastes proper to be cultivated among the
youth of the land, the Ata's creed will
win the respect of all the decent people of
the country. 1t is possible to publish
Clearly journal, and some of the most
advanced of the great newspapers of the
day are living witnesses of the fact.
There is nothing but hollowness and
falsity in all the constant iteration
that the public demands that filth, smut
and suggestiyely lewd, and passion-appeal-
ing literature shall characterize the col
umns of the daily newspaper. No one
has ever taken census of the public
thought upon that question: has simply
been taken for granted that it is so, be-
cause one class of newspapers insist upon
1t that the public demands to be served
with its toast and coffee, large share of
the scabs and sores and rottenness and
yulgarity OF the vicious. We apprehend
that If the homes of the land were can
vassed honestly for expression upon the
subject, it would develop that the vast
majority of the people who compose the
strength and integrity of communities of
the land, are not simply opposed to flash
journalism, and the daily editions of smut
and filth, but absolutely abhor the ten
dency of certain of the press to make
newspapers more and more offensive in
that direction.
vi course the journalism that defends
the system under the plea that it caters to
the public taste, is cold-blooded and dis
honest, for the reason that if it knows, as
1t asserts, the tastes of the people to be de-
PRAYED, and if it is, as it claims to be,
conservator of public good and commu-
nifty welfare, it would find its chief office
In the courageous discharge of the duty of
aiding in the correction of the abnormal
taste, instead of feeding and cater
ing to it. There is, in fact, no
logical leg upon which the bawdy
journalism of the day can stand. 1t makes
no pretense to prove its position beyond
the bald assertion that the people demand
dirt, and it is therefore justified in engag-
ing in the business of supplying it for
coin.
There will, however, come time when
this sort of defense will no longer be toll
Grated among the people. The indications
already are that the false structure is
crumbiing to pieces. Journals that attain
to .eminence and permanency and the re-
spect of the better class, or are fast ap-
preaching that level, are those that never
have served the appetite for filth, or hav-
ing done so, have seen the error of their
ways and have abandoned them for cleaner
paths. The people recognize these papers
and reward the courage and conscience
that fortify them. If the Alta will
adhere to its declaration, and stand
unswervingly against bawdyism,' it
will find clientage better and more
satisfying in all respects than the Venus
Miscellanies and gutter journals command,
to say nothing of being able to respect
itself and to enjoy the consciousness that
it does not contribute to the sum of hui
man degradation